The Inkheart: Leaping Off the Page

Inkheart is a book about books, a celebration of and a warning about books. The "Inkheart" of the title is a book. I don't think I've ever read anything that conveys so well the joys, terrors and pitfalls of reading. Each chapter is headed by a quotation from a classic - Peter Pan, The BFG, The Wind in the Willows, The Hobbit and many more - which, in the traditional way of such quotes, often has little to do with the subject of the chapter. The headings work more as a rich sample of the books that lie behind Inkheart .

Twelve-year-old Meggie discovers that when her father, Mo, reads aloud, the characters of the book actually come to life. Meggie's mother has mysteriously disappeared, and Meggie and her father have been moving from place to place to avoid vicious Capricorn and his attendant, Basta, who came from the book, "Inkheart." The two men have collected and destroyed all copies of the book so they can't be read back into their own fiction-world.

Capricorn wants his friend and cohort, Shadow, to be brought to life, and he knows that Mo can give him the treasures that remain in all the kingdoms of yore. However, Dustfinger, their fire-eating friend, wants to return to the world from which he was snatched. He betrays Meggie and Mo and bibliophile Great-aunt Elinor, trying to get the copy of "Inkheart."

When Capricorn steals the book and kidnaps Meggie, Mo and Dustfinger collaborate to rescue the girl — her father hoping for her safety and Dustfinger wanting to be read back into his world. "This world will be the death of me. It's too fast, too crowded, too noisy. If I don't die of homesickness I shall starve to death. I don't know how to make a living. . . . I'm like a fish out of water," he says.

"Inkheart" has all the elements of a top-notch high fantasy: parallel themes of good and evil, glimpses of the "other-world" and truly convincing characters. Meggie, Mo and Elinor are likeable protagonists, each wearing the qualities of this real world, while Dustfinger has a selfish demeanor balanced by a caring heart that often interferes with his motive to return to his own fiction-world.

The author's pacing is unswerving and much credit must be given to a careful translation where the descriptions and dialogue hold true — which isn't always the case in translated fiction. As a foreshadowing detail, each chapter begins effectively with a short passage from classics including "Watership Down," "The BFG," "The Jungle Book" and "The Wind in the Willows."

Funke lives in Hamburg, Germany, has written more than 40 books for young readers and is an accomplished illustrator. Her fiction was virtually unknown in the United States until last year with the publication of "Thief Lord." That book won many international awards. It reached the top of the New York Times Bestseller List soon after its release in America and was chosen by the Independent Booksellers as an award winner. "Thief Lord" earned the Batchelder Award for the best-translated children's book of the year.

100 Ways to Show You Love Inkheart!

1. You read the book till it disintegrated. Then you bought another copy and read it again.
2. You pretend you are Meggie.
3. You call all your crazy friends Elinor.
4. You call your father Mo.
5. You call your mother Resa.
6. You see a man with a scar on his face and matches and you scream, "Dustfinger!!!"
7. You run and hug "Dustfinger"
8. You read the book trying to make your favorite characters appear in front of you.
9. You write variations of scenes in the book, having added yourself to the scenario, and read aloud, trying to read yourself in.
10. You start to repeat posts because you love the book so much.
11. When you heard it was going to be a motion picture, you immediately ran to the computer to find out everything you possibly could about it.
12. You learn German so you can read the books in their original form.
13. You move next door to Cornelia Funke and harass her about the Inkheart trilogy.
14. You own all the books in English and German, paperback and hardback.
15. You have read every copy at least five times.
16. You save up your money so you can buy your own copy and not have to bum it off friends.
17. You're so busy reading the book for the 50 millionth time now!
18. You're so crazy about the book you can't live without reading it at least 3 times each month.
19. You write Inkheart related things all over everything (files, walls, siblings, exams)
20. Bug your parents about how the movie IS going to be a good one because it's got Brendan Fraser in it, and everyone (except my grandma) knows who he is.
21. You buy all of Cornelia Funke's books to read, including the little baby ones.
22. Making your seven-year-old sibling read Inkheart.
23. When you find someone who has yet to read the book, you open your purse, pull out your emergency copy, and force him or her to read it then and there.
24. You make your own Inkheart clothing line.
25. If you were ever a monarch you would make reading Inkheart compulsory, on pain of death.
26. When you see an Inkheart teaser trailer on YouTube.com *wink wink* you watch it and you find that it gives off no information on the movie whatsoever and you almost break your grandma’s nice, brand new, sad-to-be-jealous-of, computer. (But, hey, it was funny)...(go to search on youtube.com and type in "Inkheart trailer")
27. You write songs about Inkheart.
28. You find out the cast of the Inkheart movie and go buy every movie the actors were ever in, trying to make sure they are perfect for their parts.
29. You have Inkheart as the desktop for your computer and you have a message on your phone, which says "welcome to another Inkheart filled day" every morning.
30. Everything you say is a quote from Inkheart.
31. You write in your copy of Inkheart "Please sign here:" so if you ever meet the author she'll know where to sign...
32. You name your pets after Inkheart characters.
33. You wish you were good at art so you could paint "INKHEART" on your bedroom walls (believe me this is the only reason I wish I was good at art)
34. You learn to pilot a plane so you can write "INKHEART" in the sky.
35. You refuse to date a guy unless he likes Inkheart.
36. You kidnap the president so you can ransom him for all Inkheart related merchandise.
37. You ACCIDENTALLY call your dad 'Mo'.
38. You give your father a copy of Inkheart for father’s day, ditto your mother on mother's day.
39. Everyone's birthday present is Inkheart, regardless of the fact that you have given him or her a copy every birthday for the last 7 years (he heh Pfisty, guess what your birthday present is yet?)
40. Your best friend agrees to see the movie just because she will be hated forever if she does not show interest in all things Inkheart
41. You frame a copy of Inkheart and hang it on your wall.
42. You get someone to make you a t-shirt with Inkheart on it and wear it as much as you can.
43. You put Inkheart under your pillow even though you can't sleep with it there.
44. You take time out from having friends over to visit you just to read Inkheart again for the nth time
45. You give your friends long lectures on why Inkworld is the perfect place to live.
46. You make all of your friends (including people that your parents know) read the Inkworld books.
47. You see a man with a scar on his arm and run up to him screaming, "Mo!".
48. You plan on buying every movie of the Inkworld to watch it 5 times a day.
49. You have dreams about the Inkworld characters.
50. Cry every time you think of the fact that the Inkworld series is a trilogy (ya know with only three stories).
51. Go one Google every day to see if you can find out stuff about Inkheart.
52. You and your friend are writing songs to describe every character of Inkheart and Inkspell.
53. Can't pass by a copy of the book Inkheart without grabbing it and reading it.
54. Vow to find Cornelia Funke's e-mail address if it kills you.
55. When you finally find it you bombard her with so many "OMG I LUV U SOOOOO MUCH!" emails she changes her name to Steve.
56. Go after everyone named Steve in Germany.
57. Every time you write "Ink" you automatically finish the word with "heart".
58. Every time you find someone who might be slightly interested in Inkheart (or even not at all) you shove the book in their hands, force them to read it, and then make them join the forum, whether they like the book are not!
59. You leave Inkheart books everywhere to try and get people to read them
60. You "accidentally" slip your spare copies of Inkheart to people walking on the street, and when they kindly return it, you tell them that for being a caring person and not stealing it, they can have it.
61. When you see a commercial about books, and see a copy of Inkheart in the stack, you burst out, "OMG its INKHEART!!!!"
62. Your heart beats like: Inkheart...Inkheart...Inkheart...
63. You have roughly 12 stickers that say "Inkpatch" in your purse.
64. You get excited every time your dad lights a match, cuz they smell like Dustfinger, but then sob when he soils the smell with his cigarette.
65. Imaginary Dustfinger asks you for a match and together you watch the flames. (in the case of Ritz)
66. You try to thing of words that rhyme with Inkheart.
67. You see someone in a red robe, yell, "AHH!! CAPRICORN!!!" and run screaming in the opposite direction.
68. You travel the world looking for an old fashioned bookbinder like Mo.
69. You finally find one in the phonebook and you buy a copy of Inkheart just to tear it up and then you take it to him, hoping to scare him.
70. You convert the police to the joys of Inkheart so they actually do arrest people for not liking Inkheart.
71. You Google Inkheart and are mad when there are not more sites about Inkheart.
72. So you also use yahoo and excite, and any other search engine ever created, trying to find more Ink sites.
73. You make your search site Inkheart themed.
74. You write every kind of song about Inkheart....rock, pop, rap...so on...
75. You bust outta jail with the power of your trusty Inkheart book.
76. You have an Inkheart cell phone cover.
77. You theme your computer Inkheart style.
78. When you are sick, only Inkheart can make you feel better.
79. You eat Inkheart-noodle soup.
80. You're Imaginary army takes over the world and enslaves all non-Inkheart lovers.
81. Your enemy uses the powers of Inkheart to bring hello kitty to their side, proving that Inkheart can fix any problem.
82. You try to clone Inkheart, but hen realize that they print books and can make more copies.
83. You read your book so much that people often ask you "Your reading it again?"
84. You are saving all your life savings to get a library like Elinor's.
85. When attending a baby shower, you feel it is very appropriate to give a copy of Inkheart as a gift. "Baby's first Inkheart."
86. When caught in the shower during a fire, you choose to save Inkheart rather than your clothes.
87. You make new clothes out of copies of Inkheart.
88. You delight in the perk that your clothes are Inkheart, and you will always have a copy to read.
89. You sign a petition to put Cornelia Funke on money.
90. When the store blacks out during a storm, you use the opportunity to take every copy of Inkheart available and leave quickly.
91. You make an Inkheart themed Duck tape dress.
92. When in writing class, you get to write over any topic and decide, every time, to write another fanfiction in Inkheart.
93. You buy brand new notebooks and sharpies so you can color Inkheart stuff all over the notebooks.
94. You color your shoes Inkheart theme.
95. You patent the Inkheart shoes and sell them to make millions.
96. You don't make a lot so you decide the world needs to more Inkheart lovers, so you go around creating yet another cult to take over the world for the third or fourth time so far in this thread.
97. You're Anime/Game/Lord of the Rings-Loving Grandma actually wants to read Inkheart now.
98. They rename the jail "Rehabilitation Center for Inkheart Addicts".
99. They put you in solitary for the "damaging" affect you are having on the other patients in talking to them about the books.
100. The center closes down because it is an impossible illness to cure.

^_^

My Own InkHeart

What if you have the power to bring to life all that you've read? I bet it's going to be wonderful, and fun, an adventurous one. Sometimes, I just want to be a part of the books I read and be lost in their world, be a part of the story, be the hero and save the day.

This is what the book "Inkheart" is about. I've read that there were 2 people who have the power to bring to life and make anything they read become a reality to them. I thought that was really interesting.

The book is about a 12-year-old girl named Meggie Folchart whose life changes dramatically when she realizes that her father, a bookbinder named Mortimer (Mo), has an unusual ability: when he reads aloud, he can bring characters from books into the real world. Meggie and Mo's adventure takes them throughout Europe, particularly Italy, and brings them into contact with many unusual characters. Mo has the special talent to bring characters out of books. One night he brings out three characters from Inkheart, a story set in medieval times and filled with magical beings. Now, 10 years later Meggie discovers the truth and it's up to her to escape evil grasp.

I wonder how it is to live in another world.... Ahhh, I' daydreaming again.

Three Irish Myths/Legends

One Queer Experience

A good many believe that the fairies will spirit away children. They will carry off a healthy child and leave instead a weazened little dwarf. One day they played that trick on a tailor, and he kept the dwarf several years and it didn't grow any, and was just the same shriveled little thing it was in the beginning. Finally, the tailor made up his mid what the matter was. So he heated his goose red hot and held it over the dwarf, and said, "Now, get out of here--I know you!"

But the dwarf never let on it noticed him; and the tailor lowered the goose little by little till it almost touched the dwarf's face. Then the dwarf spoke and said, "Well I'll leave, but first you go to the door and look round the corner." The man knew if he did that the dwarf would get the best of him and he said he would not. Then the dwarf saw 'twas no use, and it sprang out of the cradle and went roaring and cackling up the chimney, and a good child lay there in its place.


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Froech and the Fairy Women

They heard a sound of wailing throughout Cruachu; and three times fifty women were seen with purple tunics and green hoods, and silver bracelets round their arms. People went to meet them to find out why they were lamenting "For Froech son of Idhath" said one of the women, "the darling boy of the king of the fairy hills of Ireland". Then Froech heard their wail. "Take me out," said he to his followers, "that is the wail of my mother and of the womenfolk of Boann." He was taken out thereupon and brought to them. The women came round him, and took him away to the fairy hill of Cruachu.

The next evening they saw him come back, with fifty women around him, whole and hale without blemish or wound. All the women were of like age and shape and like loveliness and like beauty and like straightness and like figure, in the dress of the fairy women, so that there was no telling one from the other. The people were almost smothered in crowding round them. They departed at the gateway of the courtyard. As they went away, they gave forth their cry, so that the people who were in the court were thrown prostrate. Hence it is that the musicians of Ireland have got the tune "the Wail of the Fairy Women.... (Irish 8th century)


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Drowned Giantess

A woman, whose breasts had not grown, was cast up on a sea shore in Europe. She was fifty feet tall, that is from her shoulders to her feet, and her chest was seven feet across. There was a purple cloak on her. Her hands were tied behind her back and her head had been cut off; and it was in this way that the wave cast her up on land.

Another woman was cast up from the sea in Scotland and she was a hundred and ninety-tow feet long; there were seventeen feet between her breasts, an sixteen was the length of her hair and seven the length of the finger of her hand. Her nose was seven feet long, and there were two feet between her eyebrows. Every limb of her was as white as the swan of the foam of the wave. (Irish 14-15th century)

A Gift from a Friend

Sa Bubungan ng Mundo (At the Roof of the World) is a book sent by a dear fellow blogger-friend: a Happy, Simple girl...thanks a lot Bey, and soon (on May1) I will meet her personally together with other 2 bloggers I have known through Reyna Elena's site.

The book talks about the Filipino’s dream to make that ultimate journey to climb and reach the summit of Mount Everest. It is written by ABS-CBN correspondent Abner Mercado and details his experience with the Philippine Team who took the dangerous climb to Everest in May 2006.

Lately, mountain-climbing has become my obsession. Before my school vacation ends, I intend to maximize the opportunities and climb as much mountain as I can...^_^

I'll document my experiences in climbing some (if not all, ambitious i know) in a separate blog, for I intend to make my new obsession a lifelong hobby.

Blogging really does come with surprises, don't you think?